In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Footsoldiers of Foreign Policy
Air Force C-141 jet transports then hauled twenty-five- ton loads
across the Atlantic to Kinshasa. Inevitably, the air force billed the
CIA for the service, s8o,ooo for each flight.
Our C-141 flights were masked by regular U.S. Air Force military
air charter planes which routinely delivered supplies to the U.S.
Army mission in Kinshasa, and arms to the Zairian army. A U.S.
Air Force plane offloading weapons in Kinshasa attracts little attention.
Repeatedly during the program we would place a token amount
of certain weapons, such as the M-72 light antitank rocket (LAWS)
or the M-79 grenade-launcher, on an overt military air charter flight
in the name of the Defense Department for delivery to the Zairian
army, to lay a paper trail which would explain to auditors and prying
eyes the existence of these weapons in Zaire and Angola.
A shipload of arms was being assembled at Charleston, South
Carolina, to be hauled to Zaire in a U.S. Navy transport vessel, the
American Champion.
The chief of station, Lusaka, was requesting permission to meet
the UNITA leader, Jonas Savimbi, in Lusaka. Heretofore we had
monitored UNIT A through meetings with its other officers. This
meeting was to be encouraged.
Kinshasa station was pleading for airplanes to fly military supplies
to the FNLA and UNIT A bases inside Angola. There was no easy
answer to this one. In fact we would search the world for months for
a C-130 or even several DC-3's which could support the Angola
program, and never find any.
Two Zairian Air Force C-130 airplanes were being overhauled in
Marietta, Georgia, by Lockheed International. Kinshasa station was
urging us to expedite their completion and if necessary to foot the
s6oo,ooo bill to get them back in action-the government of Zaire
itself was broke, out of credit, and unable to pay.
Six other IMM ED IA TE cables required answers. One concerned
the disappearance of a European journalist on the agency payroll,
whom the Brussels station had sent to Luanda. Luanda station
was requesting permission to have another agent attempt to find
her, although this would reveal her CIA affiliation to that agent.
A freelance photographer headquarters had sent to Luanda to
photograph Russian arms was being indiscreet and arguing with
the case officer about his allowances, claiming he couldn,t survive
on a s130 per diem. I drafted a cable ordering the station to send